Place[meant]: Sheng Kao

Place[meant] is a recurring series that explores identity beyond the geopolitical and physical parameters that have come to define our sense of place. From a train in Queens to the cuff of a bodily spell, the poems in this series navigate place as both material terrain and residual traces of one’s memory. Place[meant] delves into how migration, diaspora, borders, technologies of power and control, biopolitics, and historical violence shape our identities, the powers of which are anything but benign.

first mid-autumn festival away from home

second diaspora barely mine. a homenot our heavy tonguescradling a sliver of yolk,our own waning moon to pierceshrouded night. one that drapeslike a blanket of wine.

I propel myself through a blacktube across planets in a blinkanywhere is closer to my heartlost in the small kingdomof a mountain’s spine

a precarious observatoryif my cells unspooled I couldclimb a helix to the moonand back a thousand times.